"Yes," he said, bending down and kissing her—"yes, thanks. But I must go and change my things. I'm awfully dirty and seedy."
She went with him to the door, as if she begrudged every moment that he should be out of her sight, and still smiled after he had left her and had got half-way down the Gardens. Then suddenly he stopped and looked round him with a ghostly look.
And yet it was only the face of Leslie that had flashed across his mental vision. Only the face of the girl who had jilted him!
"My God! shall I never forget her?" he muttered, hoarsely. "Not even now!"
CHAPTER XXXIII.
A LITTLE SUNSHINE.
The announcement of the engagement between Lord Auchester and Lady Eleanor Dallas had appeared in the society papers a month ago, and the world of 'the upper ten' had expended its congratulations and began asking itself when the wedding was to take place, for it was agreed on all hands that so excellent and altogether desirable a match could not take place too soon.
"He has been dreadfully wild, I'm told, my dear," said one gossip to another, "and is as poor as a church mouse. But there is plenty of money on her side; indeed, they say that lately she has become fabulously rich, so that will be all right. Of course she might have done better; but everybody knows she was ridiculously fond of him—oh! quite too ridiculously. Gave herself away, in fact; and she goes about looking so happy and victorious that it is really quite indecent!"